


Kismet

by Rinniebee



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Best Friends, F/M, Friendship, Literati, Romance, Slow Burn (ish), love rivals becoming bffs, lovers to friends to lovers again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-11 09:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7885816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinniebee/pseuds/Rinniebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU Set somewhere after 5x17 to post series finale. Jess comes to Yale to apologize to Rory for asking her to run away with him. Rory decides that they should try again, as friends this time. Jess figures that it’s certainly better than having no relationship at all. This new friendship with Rory allows Jess to get to know Logan as well, and though they don’t hit it off right away, the two become unlikely friends. Eventual Literati & Jess/Logan Friendship</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ginsberg and Apologies

_one_

The bar was loud. Too loud, loud enough that Jess was having difficulties absorbing the words on the page before him. His eyes kept skipping back to the beginning of the first line, a repeat of the beginning sentence over and over and over again. He’d made it to part two, _What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?_ A line he’d read more than a thousand times before. He didn’t know why he kept coming back here, to Howl, to nostalgia.

It seemed fitting though, to read Howl while waiting for her in a bar on the campus of the school he’d always knew she could get into. His eyes dart back to the beginning of the line, reading it again but barely taking it in. There was a group of rowdy college boys to the right of him, their asinine conversation floating in and out of earshot. He doesn't mean to eavesdrop, doesn't want to eavesdrop, but they were _so_ loud.

“Hey, what are the chances of me getting that girl to come home with me tonight?” One of them says, his voice thick with an Australian accent. He was the loudest out of the three.

Jess bristles in his seat, dragging in a deep breath before trying to focus again, but then the burst of laughter came.

“Finn, that girl wouldn’t go home with you if you were the last man on earth,” another says, he’s pale and blond. Jess dislikes him purely on principle. There’s just something about him that screams ‘I’m a fucking dick’.

The other friend has left the table, off by the bar hitting on some girl who looks less than thrilled to be in his company. Jess snorts to himself as he tries to center himself, drown out the noise and focus on Howl.

He doesn’t get very far before his waitress is at his booth, smiling a little too widely at him. “Can I top that off for ya?” She’s pointing down to his empty beer mug.

“Okay,” he says easily, looking back down at his book before she walks away, but she’s an efficient waitress, so she’s back, a fresh beer on her platter, just before he finishes up part two.

“Here you are,” she says, sliding the beer toward him on a coaster. He nods at her in thanks, and is grateful when she walks away. Jess sighs, shifting against the firm padding of the booth to pull out his cellphone and check the time. Ten-thirty-two. Rory should be here in a few minutes.

“Hey man, couldn’t help but noticing you don’t seem to be enjoying yourself,” someone says in front of him, their silhouette stretched thin and long against the table. Jess recognizes the voice as one of the rowdy college boys to his right, and he sighs, placing his book down to get a good look at the blond dick.

“I’m waiting for someone,” is all he says, unwilling to engage any further.

Blond Dick shrugs, grabbing a chair from his table over. “I don’t see why you can’t enjoy some company before your date gets here.”

“Not a date,” Jess says, leaning his elbow on the table and putting Howl down beside his beer, but he keeps it open so he can still read. “And I’d rather you didn’t.”

There’s silence for a bit, then Blond Dick laughs, and it only solidifies the fact that he is, indeed, a dick. “Name’s Logan,” he offers like it means something. “Logan Huntzberger.”

“Fuck off, Logan Huntzberger.”

“Wow, I can’t imagine what kind of girl would be dying to meet up with you.”

His lips give an involuntary twitch at the corners, but he fights against the urge to smirk or laugh at all. He was not going to entertain this guy.

“Fine, fine,” Logan says, waving his hand through the air. “I get it. I’ll leave.”

Finally, Jess thinks and as Logan gets up, he sees her and he’s thankful that blond dick is already halfway back to his table when Rory finds him. He moves to slide out of the booth to greet her, but Logan beats him to it.

“Ace? What are you doing here?” He asks, his laugh loud and obnoxious.

Rory’s cheeks are flushed, her hair is longer than then he saw her last though no where near as long as it’d been back in Stars Hollow. He can’t determine how he feels about it, or even how he feels about her. He’d messed up the last time he saw her. He was only here to admit that and tell her how wrong he’d been and how sorry he was. Nothing else.

“I’m just here to meet a friend,” she says and there’s this look that she gives him that makes Jess’ chest tighten. Finally, she kind of looks around him and notices Jess at the booth, her eyes lighting up with recognition but not the usual happiness he was so used to. “Oh, I found him.”

“Him?” Logan asks incredulously. “He is not a very sociable dude, you sure you can handle him, Ace?”

Rory pushes him back, but it’s playful. “I’m sure. I’ll talk to you later.”

And when she’s finally made her way over, Jess is standing, ready to greet her. He can’t hug her after all he’s done, so he just stands there, rooted to the spot. “Hi,” he says, and it’s a word from simpler times.

“Hi,” Rory says back, and Jess can feel Blond Dick watching them.

He doesn’t mean to say it again, but he does, and suddenly he’s seventeen again.

Rory laughs, because she remembers playing this game, but it’s too hollow to be genuine. He gestures to the booth, waiting for Rory to slip inside first before following. They sit there for a bit, and Rory’s eyeing Howl on the table, looking like she wants to say something but she doesn’t say anything.

“Look, Rory,” he starts, knowing that if he doesn’t they’ll just sit there in awkward silence. “I’m sorry. For everything. I should have called, or wrote, or just… said something, anything before taking off. I know that now. And I know I should’ve let you respond when I said…” He pauses, biting at the inside of his lip. He can’t repeat it now out of fear of the urge to bolt again, and she doesn't deserve that. “When I said what I said… and I shouldn’t have just shown up at your dorm expecting you to run away with me. I’m sorry.”

It’s probably the most he’s ever said at one time, but it’s all true. She’s still silent but she’s fiddling with Howl now, probably thinking up what to say. He expects her not to forgive him, though he desperately wants her to, but he realizes that he may not deserve it.

“Why did you do it?” She asks him quietly, and it’s not what he was expecting at all. “Why did you leave?”

“I had to,” he says, feeling slightly defensive. “Luke kicked me out.”

She turns to look at him then, her eyes alight with this new information. “He kicked you out?”

“The deal was that I had to graduate high school, and I didn’t keep my end of the deal so.” He shrugged, unwilling to talk about it any more than that. Luke had never been the problem.

“But why didn’t you just tell me that?”

Suddenly, he regrets coming here. He should have known that Rory would ask the hard questions. Questions that he’d asked himself a million times but couldn’t come up with a good answer for. Truth was he’d been scared. Scared that she’d be disappointed in him, scared that she’d lose interest, that she’d realize he couldn’t give her what she wanted. He wasn’t capable. He wasn’t dependable. He couldn’t even give her the one thing she’d wanted.

“I don’t know,” he says, and he can tell by the way she’s staring at him that she doesn’t believe him. “Look, I just wanted to apologize. I’m not here to win you back or anything. I know that ship has sailed.”

Rory sighs beside him, deflating as she runs her thumb over Howl’s sharp top corner. “Can’t we be friends? I’d like to be friends.”

He barely thinks about it before he agrees to it, desperate to have her in his life in some way. Rory perks up beside him at his answer, her blue eyes filled with endless optimism. He takes a small sip of his beer to stop himself from doing anything stupid. When he lowers it, he allows a smirk to come through, finally at ease once again.

“Shall we bail, _friend?”_ He asks, and when she laughs he wonders if Liz is onto something with all her talk of fate.


	2. Short Novels & Open Houses

_two_

“So, have you heard from… Jack, was it?” Logan asks casually. His feet are up on her coffee table, and his hands are resting behind his head. “You said you two dated in high school right? Why’d I think that was the other guy? The obscenely tall one.”

Rory eyes him warily for a moment before answering, “It’s Jess. And I dated him after Dean and then… got back with Dean again.” It’s an embarrassing history to look back on, really, and probably the worst thing she’s ever done. At the time, she hadn’t thought things could get worse than her experience with Jess but she’d been more than wrong about that. “Anyway, Jess and I have remained in contact—kind of. He’s trying to figure out his life.”

“That’s good I guess.” Logan shrugs, but there’s a bit of tension in his tone. “He seems surly.”

“He’s not surly,” Rory lies. She doesn’t mean to, but defending Jess is something like second nature.

“He told me to fuck off! I was just being friendly, clearly the guy doesn’t have very many friends.”

Rory bit her bottom lip to stop herself from lying again. Truth was, Jess didn’t have very many friends. Back in Stars Hollow she had been his only one, and there had always been a possibility for him and Lane to become close, or maybe even him and Paris, but he hadn’t stuck around long enough to find out.  
“Well, maybe he could use some more. I’m his friend, and maybe you could be too?”

It’s a long shot, and she knows but, but Logan can be friendly when he wants to. He can also be kind of abrasive and indifferent if his relationship with Marty is any indication, but Jess won’t allow Logan to walk all over him and Logan needed that kind of challenge. Colin and Finn aren’t good for him, so maybe, in some weird way, Jess and Logan could be good for one another.

“Why do you care about this guy so much, Ace? Should I be jealous?”

“No!” Rory cries, feeling slightly indignant. She’d gotten over Jess a long time ago. “He’s just… my friend, and he’s alone, and he came all the way to New Haven to apologize, which is something the old Jess would have never done. I’m sorry about what he said to you, but he’s intelligent and I think you would really like him if you just gave him a chance.” Suddenly she feels like she’s talking to her mother, trying so hard to convince her of Jess’ good qualities.

Logan sighs, taking his feet up off the coffee table. “Fine, Ace. I’ll try to be his friend, but I’m only doing it for you. See, I’m totally mature... Look at me, attempting to be friends with girlfriends ex.”

And just like that, Logan is nothing like Lorelai. Rory squeals, rushing over to the couch to place a series of kisses along his cheek. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She says, and Logan laughs, brown eyes alight.

“Anything for you, Ace.”

* * *

 

_three_

“How come you didn’t invite Jess to your birthday party?” Logan asks, brushing a strand of Rory’s hair behind her ear as she shrugs.

“Grandma doesn’t like him, and last I heard he’s in Philly.”

“Ah,” Logan says, “Well, you should invite him up sometime. We can all go for a drink. Maybe a belated birthday celebration? I promise to be nice.”

Rory’s too tired to think about it, so she just leans her head against his shoulder and nods her head as she begins to doze off.

* * *

 

_four_

Jess doesn’t know why he agreed to this.

He’s sitting here, in a pub, with Rory and her boyfriend for some sort of belated birthday celebration and he doesn’t know how to feel. Logan seems to be in a bad mood, portraying himself as a completely different man than the one he’d met at the bar on campus last year. Jess' relationship with Rory is improving, mainly thanks to small doses of phone calls and emails. She sounds different in most of their conversations, subdued and secretive. He never pushes her to tell him what’s wrong, he figures he doesn’t have that right anymore, but he tries to open himself up a little bit in hope she'll do the same. He’d told her about Truncheon in Philly, but he left The Subsect out of it, thinking it was better to surprise her with it.

He’d talked to Luke before coming out to New Haven, and there’d been some allusion to a fight between Rory and Lorelai. Luke explained that Rory was living with her grandparents now and, again, Jess didn’t push it, but sitting here in this pub was making him grow impatient.

“I, uh,” Jess starts, unable to take the silent tension any longer. “Brought you a present.” He wants to do it in private, but with the way Logan is acting, he doesn't think he's going to get the chance.

Rory perks up in her seat, smiling at him with her eyes. “You didn’t have to do that, Jess,” is what she says, humble and polite, but he can hear the ‘gimme’ in her voice and he tries not to smile while Logan is watching them so closely.

“I wanted to.” He leans off the chair a bit pulls out the small, thin novel from his back pocket before handing it over.

“A book,” Rory says, looking down at the front cover. “The Subsect … Written by Jess Mariano…” Her head snaps up to look at him and then she looks at Logan and there’s a big, goofy grin on her face and she looks back down at the book. “You wrote a book?” She says, and its more to herself than to anyone else. “You wrote a book!” And then she’s turned toward Logan and she’s hitting his arm and excitement. “He wrote a book!”

Logan looks less than impressed, his face impassive but his eyes hold contempt. He looks back at Jess and smiles, but it’s fake. Jess can read these rich dicks from a mile away. “Hey, congrats man. You’re the next great American novelist.”

“You wrote a book,” Rory says again, before Jess can acknowledge Logan.

“Short novel,” Jess corrects. “Through a fluke I got it to these guys who have a small press and they read it, I don’t know if they were high or something but they decided to publish it.”

“You wrote a book…”

“There’s no money in it. They only printed like five-hundred of ‘em, believe me I’m not quitting my day job.”

“But you wrote it! You wrote a book!”

“Yeah, I know. It’s hard to believe.”

Rory was thumbing through the pages now, still looking like she was in shock. “You sat down and you wrote a novel.”

Jess told her how it was author distributed too, which is how he had the time to come visit. He’d managed to get it in a few stores already, and when Rory asks where, he just shrugs and vaguely answers with, “Around.” She smiles at him again, still looking through the pages and explains how she’s going to go find a store that carries it and put it up in the front with the staff recommendations with a sticky note with her review on it.

“Read it first, that way you can discourage people from buying it.”

“No way! I know it’s good. Jess, you’ve got such a great brain. I knew that if you could just sit down and stop shaking it around you could do something like this. I knew it! I knew it!”

“I know you did. I couldn't have done it without you,” Jess says, glancing over at Logan for a moment, remembering that he and Rory weren’t alone. “I work at that press now. Five smelly guys in a cramped room on Locus Street putting out about three books a month, but it’s fun.”

“What about a sequel?” Rory asks, getting ahead of herself. “Are you writing a sequel?”

“You should read it first before you get too jazzed about it, okay?”

“So,” Logan finally speaks up, there’s a sneer in his voice that sets Jess on edge. “What are we talking about here? Kafka length? Or longer? Dos Pasos? Tolstoy? Or longer?”

The grin on Logan’s face makes Jess want to hit him, but he takes a deep breath and tries counting to ten.

“How about Robert Musil? Proust? I’m not throwing you with these names, am I?”

He only makes it to five before the words are spilling before he can stop them, “You seem very obsessed with length.” It’s a jab that has little to do with the novels at hand. Logan’s reeks of jealousy, the emotion suffocates the room like too many spritzes of cologne.

“Guys stop it,” Rory begs, and the desperation in her voice reminds him landing punches on Dean at a party when they were eighteen.

“Maybe you can send me a copy,” Logan says, not getting the hint to back off.

Jess snorts then, ready to leave. “Sure. Where do I send it to? The Blond Dick at Yale?” It’s his final shot before he grabs his jacket and makes his exit.

* * *

 

_five_

“You said you were going to try and be his friend!” Rory reminds him when she gets back to the pub. Her arms are crossed over her chest, and she’s more than a little angry. “You said you’d do that for me, remember?!”

“You were practically slobbering all over him!” Logan accuses her. “You said he was your friend, well, that looked more than a little friendly to me, Ace!”

She can’t believe what she’s hearing, but she isn’t sure why she’s shocked. Logan has never been mature, he entered their relationship on what he assumed was an ultimatum. She had accepted it, never bothering to think critically about what that meant for her, or Logan or their relationship.

Their fight morphed into something else. Yale, Mitchum, their relationship, and their life choices. In the end they walked away from one another, no resolutions made.

* * *

 

_six_

“How’s Logan?” Jess asks over the phone.

Rory shifts her cellphone out of her hand, pinching it between her ear and her shoulder as she gathered up her books. “He’s fine, Jess.”

“You two made up?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good, I think.” She can tell he’s trying to be civil. New Jess is mature, he’s supportive even when he doesn’t want to be, and she appreciates it. “I’m sorry I lost my patience with him and with you.”

Rory shrugs, even though he can’t see her. “Anyone would have. I lost mine too, after you left.”

“Right… The big fight.”

“Yeah. But, everything’s fine now. I got your open house invitation. Logan can’t make it, but I’m going to try, okay?”

“Okay.”

She sighs, feeling slightly relieved that he still wants her there after everything. “Look, I gotta head to my next class, but I’ll hopefully see you soon.”

“Sure. Bye, Rory.”

* * *

 

_seven_

Seeing Rory at the open house still comes as a shock despite their conversation a few weeks back. He doesn’t know how to feel when he sees her standing there, but he’s just glad Luke and April are there to act as a buffer, but then everyone clears out and it’s just the two of them.

“You don’t have to read it again,” he says, noticing she’s sitting alone with The Subsect in her hands.

“I know I don’t.

“There’s _sooo_ many things I would change in it.”

Rory looks at him, her eyes curious. “Like what?”

“I’d… keep the back over, and everything else goes,” he says, sweeping his hand dramatically to the side.

Rory laughs like she thinks he’s ridiculous. “You know what? I love your book.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t remind me of anything. It’s not a rip off, it’s just you.”

Her compliment takes him by surprise. “High praise Miss Yale Editor!” He taps her knee with a knuckle as he says it, trying to hold back a smile.

“I don’t get to write as much as I would like,” Rory explains, delving into the nuances and responsibilities of her current job. "I'm mostly assigning, and motivating, handholding and rewriting." Jess listens intently, never once catching a negative tone or real complaint.

“And you love it, every minute of it. Come on, tell me you don’t,” he challenges.

Rory deflates easily with a big smile. “I do,” she admits, sounding proud now. “I do love it. It’s… exciting.”

“You look happier than when I saw you last.”

“Yeah, being back at Yale is… It’s what I needed. Thank you, Jess.”

“For what?”

“For yelling at me.”

He laughs, wincing a bit at her wording. “I wish I hadn’t.”

“No, no! It’s good. I needed it. You got through to me when no one else could, not even my mom. You were right, you do know me better than anyone else.”

It’s an admission he’s not expecting, and suddenly the conversation has turned somewhere he’s not entirely comfortable with, and yet they’re leaning in to each other, heads a little too close together even though all the loud sounds of the open house have silenced and there’s no one else around.

“Glad to help, I guess. ... I'm glad you're here.”

"Yeah, me too."

He’s not sure who kissed who when it happens, but he knows that Rory is kissing him back and it’s soft and it’s sweet, different from when they were seventeen but still the same flavour. Jess leans in to her, his hand reaching for her elbow but she pulls away before he can reach, and they’re both dazed and unsure.

“What?” He asks.

“Logan,” is all she says in return and that’s all Jess needs to snap back to reality.

He watches her get up and he follows, dragging his hand down his face to cover his mouth. “Shit. Rory, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to-”

“I kissed you back!” Rory says, sounding like she’s at war with herself. “God, I… I couldn’t even cheat on him the way he cheated on me.”

“Logan cheated on you? When?! Did you know when I came to visit you? Is that why he was being such a jerk? Is that what the fight was about?” He’s tired of being the good friend who waits patiently for Rory to tell him things on her own time, suddenly fuelled up so much adrenaline that he needs to know.

“I didn’t find out until after… After you left, Logan and I took a break as you know and while on that break he cheated on me with three different women. I forgave him, and I never told anyone about it. Not even my mom.”

“Rory…”

“Stop, okay? I know, I’m stupid.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Before I came here he accused me of being unable to forgive him. He was right, I haven’t forgiven him and then I come here and you… you don’t deserve this.”

“No,” Jess agrees. “I don’t.”

“I just… I’m in love with him. Despite all the bad he’s done, I can’t help it, I’m in love with him.”

“Love, huh?” Jess asks, feeling incredulous. “Maybe I’ll call up Matthew’s poet, have him explain love to me, poets are supposed to know all about it, right?” It was a jab, really. What Rory and Logan had didn’t look like love to him. He thought he’d had it once, but now he wasn’t so sure.

“Supposed to,” Rory says, withdrawing from the fight before it even begins. “Well, I – I guess I better go.”

“Okay.”

“I’m so sorry I came here.”

“I’m not. It is what it is, you, me.” He doesn’t know exactly what he means by that, but he hopes Rory understands that he’s not going to hold a grudge against her for this.

They leave things on a dour note and Jess wonders if he should have even bothered coming to Yale to apologize.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is honestly. I was talking to a friend about how I think Jess and Logan would actually become friends if given the chance, and then she told me to write a fanfic about it so that's what I'm doing. This is mostly for fun, honestly. I just like the idea of Jess and Logan becoming eventual bffs, but since I'm a Literati shipper, of course it will turn out to be Literati in the end as well. This story will follow canon for the most part, just with more Jess. 
> 
> Feel free to leave me some comments! They'd be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Obvious disclaimer is that I am not ASP and I do not own GG (are disclaimers necessary anymore? idk)


End file.
